


A Proper Dalish Funeral

by OptimisticMagic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dalish Elves, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28697202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimisticMagic/pseuds/OptimisticMagic
Summary: The dalish elf grey warden holds a proper funeral for their friend, now that they finally have their body, even after being infected by the darkspawn taint. Their fellow party members watch from a distance and reflect on how the warden has acted up until this point, and how they're going to act in the future because of this event.
Kudos: 2





	A Proper Dalish Funeral

At that point in her life, the ability to give her friend a traditional dalish funeral would have been a great luxury. Her tribe had moved up north ages ago after her departure, so she couldn’t even tell them what had happened to their brother. After his defeat she kneeled over his body and wept, the heat and adrenaline in her blood from battle now cooling and thickening like cement. The feeling of bleakness returned, hitting her like a great wave, even more this time after she thought she had gotten over his disappearance. The trials to prove herself to Andraste had brought about his memory, drudging it up from the depth of her inner being, and bringing it to flesh. The memory had taught her not to regret what she hadn’t done, as what she could have done was gone now, and only the path ahead of her existed.  
But now, was she allowed to feel guilt over having to end him in such a way? As an elf, she cared not what the Maker thought of her. She was never interested in human beliefs, as they always seemed to want to wash away what she thought before in the process of teaching her new things. But what would her team think? The troops she had collected thus far? Her fellow grey warden? She was not a weak woman, far from it in fact, leading her warriors into certain death time and time again with no sign of fear but an itchy trigger finger, coming out of everything with a chuckle and a semi-optimistic outlook on their next adventure. Now however, no one with her had ever seen her like this before.  
In an attempted sign of respect, no one else participated in what she was able to set up for her fallen brother Tamlen. They only watched from afar as she dug the grave with frightening ease, and carefully placed his body inside. It would only be seen as an attempt to kiss up to her, to participate in a funeral for a person that they didn’t know. The signs of the darkspawn’s sickness was clear as the sun during the day to her now, having seen it time and time again after her many gruesome adventures. She was staring at the face of a rotting corpse, with bruised dark purple skin covering his whole body, and his hair falling out in clumps. Still, just one last time, she placed her two fingers on his neck just underneath where his jaw bended, searching for a pulse, or any sign of life. If she were to ever find out that she buried a friend alive while trying to show her utmost respect to him during a funeral she could not provide for, she would have found herself completely hollow. Thankfully, finding none, she climbed out of the hole and stood before it, threading her fingers together to prepare for a prayer.  
“Powerful forest, I beg of you, please forgive brother Tamlen for the attacks he committed against his own people and their friends. His body and soul had been tainted by the darkspawn, and he lost control of his own being. He became a spectator for his own terrible acts, and a victim of mindless violence, like many others you have seen before him. I thank the fates dearly, to allow me the opportunity to keep on living and protect the ones I love from falling under, but I must ask of you this. Please allow Tamlen to join you, as if he had died a peaceful and honorable death. I hope in your eyes, his suffering has granted him an eternity of tranquility in the afterlife.” She had yet to wipe her tears away, allowing them to fall to the ground below her. “And if time is all it takes, I offer this ash tree sapling to hold him, keeping him safe until he is humbly accepted into your ranks.”  
She sniveled and blinked the wetness from her eyes, grabbing her shovel and filling in the hole in the dirt in front of her. The rest of her party had never seen her in such a depressive state prior to today.  
When she had woken up from the aftermath of the battle that killed the king, giving up seemed to be the last thing on her mind, with the threat of the blight just over the horizon. She wasn’t having a breakdown like Alistair, and she hadn’t given up on all sentient life around her like Morrigan. They both watched as she stood up, determined to demand help from the most powerful factions, with the treaties in her fist, reminding all of them of their debt to the wardens, whos numbers had now been reduced from thousands to just two. She was going to unite Ferelden whether they liked it or not.  
When Leliana joined them, looking to prevent her prophetic dream of suffocating darkness, she saw her leader as a woman who tried so hard to fit into places she knew she didn’t belong. Not only as a strong and fighting woman, but as an elf, who a lot of noble humans that didn’t know her saw as expensive property. Someone that could clean an entire house in a fourth of a day, or carry anything they’d want to buy during an entire week’s shopping trip with mighty ease. She loathed her ancestor’s past of slavery, and any mention of her doing menial labor for a human with no reward made her angrier than anything. Leliana saw a person with a stronger will than anyone she had encountered in her past as a traveler, and no matter the circumstance, it inspired her to keep moving and singing every day time and time again.  
In the wake of a failed assassination attempt, the grey warden had seen real fear in her attacker’s eyes, though he’d done exceptionally well to hide it. Behind his honeyed words, she felt his intense regret. If this really was the end, he had done nothing. He had known nothing but the land where he was sold as a child, and the assassins that taught him his now perfectly honed skills. Not perfect enough it seems, she thinks he’d say. There was nothing meant for him but this, and he knew it all too well, but he still felt regret for something. He had no idea what, but even so he wanted to keep living, even offering up his eternal loyalty to the woman he just tried to kill only because his leaders said so. He was absolutely sure that she was just going to kill him, laughing at his desperate attempts to cling to his unfair life, but he was wrong. She gave him his hand, took him to camp, and treated his wounds. Fed him and clothed him and gave him gifts like he was an old friend, much to the chagrin of her teammates. It was a debt he’d know forever, pledging himself to her till death grabbed him themselves with their cold impartial hands. He was Zevran the elven assassin, and he was forgiven.  
The only one who could possibly truly know how she had felt during the funeral was Wynne. She had lived in the Mage’s Circle all her life, similar to how the warden only knew her beloved tribe. If one of Wynne’s fellow sisters had all of the sudden disappeared, only to reappear months later as a walking corpse, begging her to kill them before they hurt her, she would have given up on everything. If something like that could happen to anyone, even the ones she loved, she wouldn’t even see the point of it all.  
After waking from the party’s sleep in the fade and defeating the sloth demon, the warden had confided only in Wynne that the demon had gotten her greatest dream wrong. He had showed her Duncan, the mentor that she had only known for a few days, alive again. She was in a fixed up Warden’s Keep, and the Blight was never going to happen, or it had been prevented completely and the King hadn’t died, she couldn’t tell. She didn’t know why, but the demon assumed that she held a great amount of remorse for Duncan and his death. The truth was, she couldn’t feel bad for the death of a man she barely knew. He had saved her from the darkspawn sickness and turned her into a grey warden, but he was the same man that pulled her away from her family and stabbed an innocent man to death during the warden’s ritual. She would be lying through her teeth if she said she held the same honor to have known him like Alistair did. She admitted that if the demon had really gotten her greatest dream right, he would have shown her the tribe she was forced to drift from again, perfectly intact. She wouldn’t even know what the Blight was, and she’d have never known what grey wardens were, and she would be able to go hunting once again with her family, free from the grasp and sight of nosy and entitled humans. It was because he had gotten it so completely wrong that she was able to see the demon’s illusions and eventually snap everyone out of the trick.  
Wynne now watched this head strong young elf weep, planting an ash tree over her dear friend’s grave. Witnessing a perfect traditional dalish funeral must be a true sight, she thought. Planting a tree and nurturing a life in the honor of someone else’s death sounded like a phenomenal sentiment. But with no one to comfort the only one who could properly perform the task, it was little more than sad.  
“And with your guiding hand I shall stop the Blight no matter what it takes. Your hope in me will not be misplaced, I promise you. I will not be led astray by any earthly temptations, and I will look up to you always, no matter what. I thank you, dear forest, for accepting my audience.”  
What worried everyone the most was how she wasn’t able to bounce back from this as fast as she did everything. For the next few days she didn’t act quite like she usually did. She joked less, asked less questions, spent less time with their party in favor of training or strategizing their next move. Even her gift giving was less a small momentous occasion and more a transaction between business partners. Eventually, after coercion from her close friends, she came back little by little, but it took a great more effort than anticipated.  
Once back into the swing of things, it was almost as if it had never happened. She hadn’t had to bury her old friend, she didn’t have to hold the ceremony all by herself, and her friends didn’t watch her break down to her weakest state, blocking everyone out until she was able to decide for herself what she cared about more. Sure, she was able to come back from this after a number of days, but what kind of tragedy would it take for her to shut everyone she loved out completely in favor of becoming a hardened and stone cold leader, in the place of the inquisitive, cheerful appearing and respectful one they once knew?  
No one knew. And everyone hoped that they would never find out.


End file.
